For the first time all season, “Saving Hope” begins with…hope!

After Charlie responded to Coma Arousal Therapy and moved his hand at the end of the last episode, hope has returned for Alex. A relief, says Erica Durance who plays the fiancée to comatose Charlie.

“It’s a refreshing (positive energy) compared to the first two episodes,” Durance says. “She’s so elated and so desperate for (Charlie moving his hand) to mean something.”

“Against the odds and the stats, against what they're all saying, he's getting better,” Alex tells one of her patients.

Even though Joel and Maggie try to warn Alex that it might not mean anything at all, Alex must hold onto the blind faith she requires to get her through her grief.

“The only thing that's certain is that nothing is ever certain,” she snaps at Maggie.

So where’s the line between hope and blind hope that isn’t rooted in reality?

“Alex is challenged because she is very pragmatic. She is very much about what she can see and touch and feel – the evidence in front of her,” explains Durance and Charlie moving his finger is tangible evidence of at least the potential for his recovery.

But her desire to be at Charlie’s bedside begins encroaching on her work as a doctor. After passing off patient Benjamin Munk to Maggie, it turns out the patient’s seemingly minor symptoms are indicative of something much more severe and the patient begins collapsing and vomiting up blood.

But Benjamin’s symptoms are once again not what they seem and eventually Alex pieces together that he’s a con-man. “You bled yourself to present as anemic and then drank the blood so it'd show up in your stool,” she says, calling him out.

In reality, all she wants to do is be sitting with Charlie, coaxing him to move his finger again. “She’s getting frustrated with him and she’s irritated because she really wants to wrap it all up and really be with Charlie,” explains Durance.

Her distraction doesn’t go unnoticed, not by her fellow doctors, the nursing staff, and most unfortunately, not by the new Chief of Surgery, Dr. Kinney. Dr. Kinney questions her handling of Benjamin’s case, wondering if she would’ve been more on top of his diagnosis before Charlie’s accident.

 “You're distracted. There doesn't seem to be any room for anybody but Charlie,” Dr. Kinney says.

“She’s devastated with that concept that she’d lose that focus and part of herself. She lets her patient (Benjamin) have it a bit, which is also not very professional,” Durance says.

Alex promises to get focused and keep her “head in the game,” but when Shahir runs tests on comatose Charlie, Alex’s worst fears are re-confirmed.

“The numbers don't lie, Alex. There's been no improvement,” he tells her. “The finger movement was involuntary. It was a random firing of the neurons. It's a reflex. It means nothing.”

“She’s taken for quite a loop,” Durance says. “She has to go back again in her mind and start at square one again. Here, you see more of a window into her desperation – how much she wants to (trust) that if you believe hard enough, something will come to fruition.”

It’s Joel who reminds Alex that her faith and her hope in Charlie’s recovery is just as essential as any medical procedure.

“You're not his doctor,” he reminds her. “You're his lifeline. And right now you're all he's got.”